Thestrals
by arctique48
Summary: There was a legend. The War rains blood and clouded eyes watch. They are cursed.


**Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR.**

**AN:** And this goes out to _trieste_… who was kind enough to point out it had gone missing :S…

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-**Thestrals**

-

A thousand years can pass but the some things will remain the same.

_Hushed. "You can see thestrals?"_

_Haunted. "I can see death."

* * *

_

Legend tells there once was a King. A great King of Men they called him, beautiful, proud and benevolent, and though history has forgotten his name the story remains.

The King ruled a fair green country; a fresh sunlit land east of the sea, and he had a daughter, the most beautiful girl in all the lands some would say. She had a love for the night and the shadows in the trees, and from all over the world, men would come to seek her beauty, simply for the inspiration her face would bring. The King loved his daughter more than anything in all the Earth and she had everything a girl could wish for.

It was one autumn night (All Hallow's Eve some hasten to say), when the King's popularity and the Princess's beauty were at their height, that the girl went riding out under the moon. She went riding with the sky dark and found herself alone in the forest. Defenceless in the trees she felt the shadows move.

It was then that she saw it (or so speak the stories).

A beast so beautiful and terrible she trembled to contemplate. Her awe set her back a step but the beast didn't stir. It was a horse the purest of blacks, velvet fur and silken mane. On its back were the wings of a raven but its outward appearance did nothing compared to the sight of its eyes.

Pools of shattered dreams, black broken mirrors laced in blood, its eyes made her fall to her knees. Everything, the pain of a thousand years condensed in that one gaze, screaming and biting and sobbing where the beast made no movement.

Broken hearts and tears of blood. It ripped her soul apart.

They found her the next morning, alone in the forest, not a scratch on her but babbling, echoing incoherently about a creature so terrifying and beautiful you could weep.

They took her home and her father heard of the beast she spoke of. Alarmed, he went to ask her but found she was silent, staring from her window as though she heard nothing of him.

She never spoke again.

The King tried everything. All the doctors money could buy, healing ladies, priests, even a travelling magician, nothing would bring her back.

She took to painting. Everyday and often through the night.

She painted terrible things.

Death and destruction, people and places she had never seen, events she would never witness.

And she learnt to write. Tragic poetry founded on ancient wars, battles fought decades before her birth, entwined with tales of places she would never see.

Her father read it all. Saw her paintings, watched her write. Her art told of things he'd barely heard of, far off times he couldn't comprehend. And he was scared. Because whatever this beast had done, this was no longer his daughter. He would hear her crying when all else was asleep, sobbing softly and it was the only sound she ever made. He knew more than anything that he had to find the creature that had done it. He had to change her back.

The King set a reward of gold, silver and jewels for any knave who could bring him news of the beast who stole his daughter's voice (_stole his daughter's soul_). Posters were despatched all across the Kingdom and many men came. All across the country the search began.

For a year and a day nothing came but hoaxes, but then, one night when he had given up almost all traces of hope, a man came to the castle.

He dressed in dark robes, tattered and darned. His hair was hidden by a hood and he walked with the aid of a wooden staff. He told no one his name.

The King saw him immediately, had him bought in and offered food and drink.

"Sir, I am told you may have some news about the beast my daughter saw?"

"Yes." He grunted.

"Well?"

Flames flickered in the hearth and the King waited with breath baited.

"Thestral." The old man mumbled. "What she saw was a Thestral."

The King shifted in his seat, anticipation wrought in every line of his body. "And a thestral is?"

Eyes clouded the other man looked up. He seemed to sense nothing of the King's excitement and when he spoke his voice was low and soft, almost reverent. "Guardian of Time. They reveal themselves to few, but now she sees what they see. The past. Present. Future. All times. All things…" He trailed off.

The King paused, frowning slightly. "Sir. I'm not sure if you're aware of the situation… These beasts, they stole my daughter's voice. She no longer speaks or sings or does anything by cry, paint and write… This is serious and I need you to tell me exactly what you know of these creatures, if, indeed, you know anything of them at all." He gave the man a firm, steady look. "Will you tell me what you know?"

The stranger nodded. "I know them. I've seen them." He tensed. "But not the eyes… it's in the eyes." Eyes bright beneath his hood he fixed his gaze on the King. "She saw the eyes of a thestral. She saw her death and the death of us all…" Head shaking the gaze slipped away. "She sees what they see."

"Sir, I'm not sure-"

"SHE knows!" the man demanded, overriding the shocked King. "They are creatures of Time himself! They see it all and to meet their eyes is to share their sight. She has the curse of Sight, Your Majesty. She has the curse of Sight and you will not end it. They see it _all_."

The old King sighed. "Listen here, Sir. I don't need oldwives tales. This animal is real. Not a product of my daughter's imagination nor a figment of fairytales. The effects are real enough and the cause must be likewise. I'm asking you to tell me what this beast is and exactly how I deal with it. All I want is to end her suffering."

"She does not suffer." Murmured the man in an almost moan. "She will not suffer."

"What are you speaking of?" Demanded the King, growing restless and faintly unnerved.

"To look into the eyes of a thestral is to see your death, Your Majesty. Not just see, prophesise. Cause."

"Cause? Her death? What do you mean?"

"She sees what they see." Repeated the stranger.

"Yes!" Barked the King, "I know! Now tell me how to make it stop!"

"Make it stop, Your Majesty? Why would you want to do that?" The man asked quietly, bemused. "She sees all things."

"I know she sees things! What I need is for you to tell me how to make it stop!" He snapped.

The old man just smiled serenely. "There is no stopping it, Highness. Your daughter is already dead. They saw it. They told it. She is already dead."

"What?" Confusion flickering and being replaced with dismay: the old man had clearly lost his mind. In his desperation to find something (_anything_) he had evidently not noticed this stranger was quite completely insane. "I'm sorry, Sir. But I think I'm going to have to ask you to leave," was all he said, slumping weakly into the chair.

Calling a servant he had the guest shown from the castle.

"My Lord?"

"Yes?" He snapped irritably. The search was getting him nowhere.

"I… I think that… Well, you see-"

"Spit it out man!"

"The West Tower!" Squeaked the squire. "The princess fell, Your Majesty…. She – She's dead."

Eyes wide, he ran to the grounds.

Horror and fear replaced with certainty and anger and then again with determined wrath that none had ever seen in their King. The Princess was buried and mourned for nine days and nine nights and the King vowed to never stop in his hunt. He summoned to him the greatest Sorcerers in the Kingdom, the most adept and fearful in their wielding of the Dark Magiks. He had them come and he had them find the beasts, the thestrals. He had them connect every thestral with a single blood curse. He had them strip them of their hides, no longer things of beauty he had it made that no innocent would ever look into the eyes of such a monster (for he had made them that - Made them monsters, resemblant of the corpses they would forevermore feed on).

And they were cursed. Thestrals, now never to be seen by human eyes untainted. Their beautiful hides were ruined, their figures wasted with the wings of bats over birds. They truly became creatures of the night. Descending into the abyss with the dementors and other things of darkness.

With their figures ravaged, wings distorted and beings cursed he made one last punishment. Their eyes, once dark and deep as the galaxy itself, he clouded, leaking them of their powers. They still see. (See all Time. All things.) But they have no power to divide their curse, no means to share their burden. He made them weak. (_He left them alone_.)

Still their eyes hold all the sadness of the many ages of the Earth. Still they see it all. Past. Present. Future. They see the end blurring before the beginning and all things come and go in their consciousness. And they are cursed. Never to share their knowledge, never to be anything but secret and hideous. _Never to be anything but feared. _

No longer the beasts of Time they are the heralds and followers of Death. Rats of the battlefield and demons of the night. Falling from human knowledge, only the descendants of those few sorcerers would know of their existence. Only those few. They fell into shadow, unknown to all but those who witnessed death.

Time forgot them.

They haunted the uninnocent and them alone, seeking company, recognition, understanding. They receive nothing but fear and loathing. (Omens they call them. Omens and monsters.)

Over time the stories have spread. A drunk muggle soldier seeing Satan in the form of a flying horse. A hermit running back to civilisation screaming of a great beast in the mountains, a hoofed dragon that gorged on flesh. The steeds of fallen angels, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They shadow misery in blood.

This legend is one of the many, passed down by generations all over the world. It is as close as any interpretation we have of the truth behind these beasts and as we speak, there are wizarding scientists in the depths of the Black Forest, Germany, trying to find a cure for this curse, so that once more the thestrals shall be free to ride without suspicion and revulsion clinging on.

Do you not wish to bring justice to these poor creatures, animals cursed for eons, until no one knew of their hidden beauty, their bravely borne pain? If you want to help then _spread the word!_ _Tell _people of the atrocities these beasts endured. Tell them of the misunderstanding that lead to their exile. _How can anything living deserve this fate? _Cursed for the mistakes of their ancestors they are innocent and deserving of a way out! Any donations would be much appreciated and can be made payable to the "Save the Thestrals" fund (Offices situated in Frankfurt, Germany; Dijon, France; and HQ in northern Snowdonia, Wales.)

_Other information sources on these extraordinary and grossly misunderstood beasts include:_

My Life in a Thestral Herd By Matilde Berecondée 

Thronging with Thestrals By Gilderoy Lockhart

The Baby Thestral Who Nobody Loved (and Assorted Other Stories for Wizardlings) By Talitha Jenkins

Feral Darkness: A Guide to the Most Deadly Animals of the Wizarding World By Ezabella Grandshaw

* * *

Hermione Granger sighed, leaning back against the window frame, flipping closed the magazine on her lap.

It was the copy of _the Quibbler_ she'd found Harry browsing earlier (when questioned he'd just grinned and the matter wasn't pressed). After a few hours unable to sleep she'd made her way down to the Weasley's kitchen and found it kicking around near the potatoes. The article she'd been reading, _Thestrals: Magizoology and Myth_,had been interesting, though she found herself greatly amused at their insistence in the fairytale-style story.

All the same, just reading it made her think, casting her mind back the that lesson in the forest, when the only ones seeing anything were Harry, Nott and Neville.

How much that would have changed by now… She wondered how many of the Slytherins in that group would still see nothing. Malfoy for one had changed.

Malfoy. Just thinking his name made her chill, mind racing. The battle at base of the tower, Dumbledore's funeral, Snape's flight. And yet, as she'd listened to Harry's story she'd felt nothing but pity for the boy, no older than her and already being forced to kill.

She remembered the conversation she'd had just the other night with Harry.

"_Do you think there's anything we could do?"_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_We can't just leave him like that. You said he was scared… That his hand was shaking!"_

"_Malfoy?" His eyes had widened. "Look, I feel bad about it too, you know I wouldn't wish a life like that on anyone, but what do you honestly think we could do? Would he really allow us to help even if we bothered to try?"_

"_You said he paused when Dumbledore made him that offer."_

"_It was just a pause Hermione, anything could have happened. And anyway, Snape killed all hope of his 'redemption' with his curse." He said bitterly. "He knows that."_

"_But just because Dumbledore's gone doesn't mean the offer is dead! The Order could take him in!"_

_He snorted. "Merlin, Hermione. Do you honestly believe the Order would even consider it after what he's done." He shook his head. "I can't even believe you thought it!"_

"_He did it because he was scared."_

"_Come on! He would have done it anyway!"_

"_No he _wouldn't_! He couldn't even hold his wand straight to cast the spell!" _

_Voice rising she'd stared her friend down but to her dismay he suddenly grinned, breaking into laughter. "Just make sure you don't let Ron hear you're making Malfoy the next S.P.E.W, alright?"_

Since then they'd had little time to think of what would become of their schoolyard rival, with wedding preparations well underway and the Burrow constantly resembling a battleground of white and pale blue.

She sighed. Now she had time to think she found it difficult to tear her mind away from him. How long would it take until they broke him down? He was going to kill with the rest of them and even though it was obvious and unavoidable, she still hated the thought, unable to comprehend the whiny little maggot as anything more than a petty bully.

Something like that, like the green light of the Avada Kedavra curse, would change a person completely. Their entire essence altered, their very soul broken. The reality of it, discovered through Harry's lessons with Dumbledore, horrified her beyond belief. Parents pushed their children to follow these ideals, taught them the curses that would unmake them, turn them into unrecognisable monsters.

The very depth of the issue was painful and the knowledge that _Malfoy_, just a boy, was bound by honour or duty or some other false restriction of his damn bigoted society, to go and kill innocent people. And he was scared and there was no way out.

To think that two years ago Harry was not even aware of the existence of the thestrals as they pulled the carriages up to Hogwarts, now he was justified to look at them by three times over. Three deaths. Cedric. Sirius. Dumbledore.

That was the thing.

She was yet to look on them and still she knew with certainty that by the time the next year had passed she too would know what it looked like to see the eyes of Death.

Still, she thought, the King in the legend, myth as he may be, wouldn't have managed to end their powers. The powers of their eyes gone and they still stand as a reminder of everything lost. She wonders if Malfoy will ever be able to watch one of the creatures without thinking of Dumbledore. She's seen how Harry blanches whenever he sees them through a window, hovering over the forest. She knows she cannot comprehend what he's seeing behind his eyes, but she also realises that soon she, she and so many others will be the same. Watching reptilian monsters and seeing death after death in their mind's eye for the knowledge that without that one strand of thought, so easily erased, they would be seeing nothing but air.

She sits there and wonders, magazine in hand, how different they'll all be by the end of this War (if they even live to see it). Indeed, they've changed already. She takes far less for granted now, remembers what a gift her magic is, and knows how if things swing the wrong way she could find herself without it. A Muggle again. She sits and she thinks, chewing her lip in the certainty that before the year was out many more wizards would have looked on the faces of thestrals.

* * *

Back at Hogwarts, seven hundred miles North of the Burrow, the castle lay still. Every year students and teachers left, and yet this time something was different.

Tall and proud, Tenebrus, the undisputed leader of the herd, beat his wings, rising to rest on the roof of the newly erected tomb.

Something had altered. He could taste it on the air. The magic of the castle was diminishing, not leaving but soaking down into the earth, the forest and the lake; power lying dormant, its time would come again. The winds were changing, protective energy shifting to guard not the building, but its old inhabitants, the students and professors.

Rearing up, front hoofs beating cold night air, he let out an unearthly shriek, echoing through the forest and over the many turrets of the school.

_War has begun_. He knew it was a certainty that ripped through the night like a silver bullet. _And we must ride._

Turning on the spot he faced the trees, answering screams cleaving the night. Shadows moving and the thestrals regrouped.

Their time had come.

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**AN:** On a more random note: is anyone watching the new BBC production of Bleak House? It's making me want to go dig out my mum's old Dickens books… Anyway, as always, don't forget to **review!**


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